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Help advance post-quantum communications in constrained environments.
The PQC Ratcheting Protocol Working Group is a joint effort of the Department of War, National Institute of Standards and Technology, and General Services Administration. It brings together federal agencies, industry, the standards community, and academia to address post-quantum cryptography protocol challenges in environments with limited bandwidth and intermittent connectivity.
The working group focuses on ratcheting protocols that continuously update keying material through asynchronous key agreement. The goal is to reduce communication overhead while supporting security and session recovery across constrained networks using quantum-safe cryptography.
The primary focus is network-layer and IP-layer protocols, while allowing consideration of other fundamental infrastructure protocols. The group will examine lightweight alternatives to static pre-shared keys and session-based protocols that require interactive key updates.
Work will address asynchronous protocol variants for TLS, QUIC, and IPsec; recovery across intermittent, high-latency networks; independent endpoint update schedules; and benchmarking of PQC traffic costs.
The updated working group scope identifies five related challenges in establishing, maintaining, and recovering secure communications under constrained or intermittent connectivity.
Connection establishment and update cost
Initial key exchanges incur their full cost when a connection is established. Subsequent updates also consume computing resources and bandwidth. The group will examine how to schedule updates efficiently over long-lived traffic.
Fresh key material during long sessions
Long-lived TLS and QUIC sessions face limitations in introducing fresh keying material without interactive exchanges. The group will focus on asynchronous key agreement that can introduce fresh material without waiting for peer round-trips.
Session recovery after network failure
Resuming a session can avoid a full handshake, but resumption alone cannot restore security when resumption secrets have been compromised. The group will examine recovery mechanisms that address the cost of repeating full PQC handshakes.
Certificate and key exchange overhead
Session establishment can impose substantial certificate and key-exchange overhead, which may recur after reconnection. The group will explore mechanisms to spread that overhead over time while maintaining cryptographic protection.
Independent endpoint key updates
Endpoints may have different resource limits and update needs. Coupling their update schedules can reduce efficiency. Asynchronous approaches must account for update ordering, concurrent changes, and missing updates.
Participants will work toward architectural guidance, technical findings, and standards contributions informed by demonstrations and benchmarking. Priorities include:
These are working objectives. Longer-term deliverables remain under discussion.
The working group welcomes contributions across government, industry, standards development, and academia. Participants will work concurrently and use one another’s findings to refine the group’s work. Industry participants must currently be on GSA’s Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) to participate.
Federal agencies
Agency mission owners can bring operational requirements, help align vendor development with mission needs, validate draft artifacts, pilot products and technical recommendations, and share results with the working group.
Industry participants
Technology providers can contribute subject matter experts and information about current PQC cryptography and protocol development, implementation, and testing. Participants can also provide equipment for evaluating protocols in laboratory and sector-specific environments.
Standards community
Standards participants can bring working group findings into potential future standards, recruit contributors, author standards, and review draft standards.
Academia
Academic participants can independently analyze candidate ratcheting protocols, review draft findings, and share relevant research on PQC cryptography and protocols.
Within this joint GSA, DoW, and NIST effort, GSA hosts the working group, manages collaboration and project coordination, and supports potential requests for information. DoW provides executive sponsorship, subject matter expertise, technical strategy, and goal alignment. NIST contributes technical expertise and lab resources and coordinates demonstrations with NCCoE Migration to PQC collaborators.
Collaboration will include technical architecture reviews, vendor working sessions, a shared repository for draft materials, structured feedback, and progress updates. These activities will support protocol evaluation, benchmarking, and standards development.
Help the group define mission requirements, evaluate candidate protocols, and develop findings that can inform implementation and future standards. Federal agencies, technology providers, standards contributors, and academic researchers are invited to express interest. Watch this space to find out how.
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Rates for Alaska, Hawaii, and U.S. territories and possessions are set by the Department of Defense.
Rates for foreign countries are set by the Department of State.
Rates are available between 10/1/2024 and 09/30/2027.
The End Date of your trip can not occur before the Start Date.
Traveler reimbursement is based on the location of the work activities and not the accommodations, unless lodging is not available at the work activity, then the agency may authorize the rate where lodging is obtained.
Unless otherwise specified, the per diem locality is defined as "all locations within, or entirely surrounded by, the corporate limits of the key city, including independent entities located within those boundaries."
Per diem localities with county definitions shall include"all locations within, or entirely surrounded by, the corporate limits of the key city as well as the boundaries of the listed counties, including independent entities located within the boundaries of the key city and the listed counties (unless otherwise listed separately)."
When a military installation or Government - related facility(whether or not specifically named) is located partially within more than one city or county boundary, the applicable per diem rate for the entire installation or facility is the higher of the rates which apply to the cities and / or counties, even though part(s) of such activities may be located outside the defined per diem locality.
U.S. General Services Administration